Ask HN: How are you preparing for PEPPOL? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How are you preparing for PEPPOL?

67 pointselric76 comments

Couldn't find any previous discussions on PEPPOL on HN. If you're unfamiliar with it, it is an electronic invoicing network, which the EU is starting to force on businesses. All business-to-business invoices in Belgium will have to be sent over PEPPOL as of next year [1]. Gone will be the days of emailing PDFs.

This obviously impacts every business which deals with other businesses. Access to the PEPPOL network is not free. Direct access is nearly impossible (it is expensive and requires technical audits). A variety of third parties are popping up to mediate access. They all seem complex and expensive. Not only will you have to use the network to send your invoices, you will also have to receive them somehow. If you're a small business, this could get pretty complicated pretty quickly.

I'm assuming we have some EU business owners/freelancers/entrepreneurs on HN. How are you preparing for this (apparently inevitable) future of PEPPOL?

[1] https://finance.belgium.be/en/enterprises/vat/e-invoicing/ma...

View on HN

We make a niche B2B software which has an invoicing module and we've had to add EHF[1] support, which is the Norwegian implementation of electronic invoices delivered through PEPPOL.

The gov't in Norway has mandated use of EHF for billing the gov't for about a decade now, which really drove adoption. Our customers has to have an agreement with one of the access points[3], so the cost of sending the EHF goes directly to the customer.

Adding support wasn't terribly hard, but it wasn't trivial either. The XML is fairly straight forward, but when you submit one the access point doesn't just do a schema verification, it also verifies that intermediate values are calculated and rounded correctly for example.

[1]: https://anskaffelser.dev/postaward/g3/spec/current/billing-3...

[2]: https://peppol.org/learn-more/country-profiles/norway/

[3]: https://anskaffelser.no/verktoy/veiledere/aksesspunkter-ehf-...

It doesn’t seem to be EU-mandated? Only Italy and Belgium have it mandatory, according to [0], in other countries it’s only relevant for B2G.

Outside that Wikipedia entry, I have also heard nothing about it becoming required in Germany (we are mainly B2C, but do some B2B and B2G), here we are instead moving forward with X-Rechnung/ZUGFeRD/Factur-X, which is an XML standard that can also be embedded in PDFs, and doesn’t require certification or anything.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEPPOL

Latvia: As of this year it is required in B2G transactions. Next year, mandatory for B2B

And what are the official guidelines? Are you just supposed to find a 3rd party provider and pay whatever they ask? That’s kinda shitty if you ask me.

In Latvia, there's a requirement to prepare invoices in PEPPOL xml format (B2G from 2025, B2B from 2026), but no requirenent to send them over PEPPOL network.

And if I check here [0]

> The new required fields were added as part of the harmonisation between Peppol BIS Billing and the XRechnung standard. Peppol BIS Billing is the equivalent of XRechnung for sending e-invoices via Peppol. By harmonising the XRechnung standard and incorporating it into the Peppol “National Ruleset”, the two formats (XRechnung and Peppol BIS Billing) are now almost fully equivalent.

It seems that this ends up the same way and compatible with the solution in Germany and France, and doesn’t have any of the issues OP describes.

[0]: https://en.e-rechnung-bund.de/new-version-xrechnung-standard...

So the EU mastered the trick of solving the problem of 23 competing formats and we aren't all taking notes?

The formats seem to all be extensible in a way that allows you to update the version to make them compatible. The magic of XML.

That's what the Belgian guideline seems to be, yeah. From what I gather, the extra costs are deductible at 120% during the first year. But it still all feels pretty shitty.

And for XRechnung, we luckily have AI-converters that take your existing PDF invoice and reliably convert it into XML without a need to change existing tools or workflows: https://www.invoice-converter.com/en

I’m using bookkeeping software that has already integrated it. It’s just a switch to turn sending invoices via peppol. It’s no extra charge on my paid plan.

I’m assuming all bookkeeping software will integrate it, just as all suppliers are able to send PDF invoices.

For the ones sending invoices manually, like OP, maybe software with free tiers will pop up. Just like many suppliers have free tiers for sending PDF invoices.

>All business-to-business invoices in Belgium will have to be sent over PEPPOL as of next year [1]. Gone will be the days of emailing PDFs.

>Access to the PEPPOL network is not free. Direct access is nearly impossible (it is expensive and requires technical audits). A variety of third parties are popping up to mediate access. They all seem complex and expensive.

So what you're saying is that a certain group of companies ("third parties") successfully lobbied your government(s) to mandate an artificial monopoly on a practical necessity for ostensibly honorable and convenient reasons, and everyone will pay up for this divine virtue.

I'm sorry if this comes off as dismissive, but as an American who deals in this sort of officework as part of $dayjob you guys need to vote in better politicians.

>I'm sorry if this comes off as dismissive, but as an American who deals in this sort of officework as part of $dayjob you guys need to vote in better politicians.

Wanna tell me how you file taxes?

My personal taxes? I just fill out the federal and state forms and mail them in, though I'm thinking of hiring a CPA to do it for me starting this year since some things might get more complicated than I care for. We'll see, I guess.

The company? A CPA does it as far as I know, but filing everything ourselves is certainly an option.

Are these forms pre-filled where just sending it in without any revisions is an option if you're a basic salaried employee without any special deductibles?

> So what you're saying is that a certain group of companies ("third parties") successfully lobbied your government(s) to mandate an artificial monopoly on a practical necessity for ostensibly honorable and convenient reasons, and everyone will pay up for this divine virtue.

I'm sure that direct (as in having your own AS number, IP blocks and peering arrangements) access to the internet is even more expensive, not to mention things like your own electricity or your own cellphone network.

Somehow, people aren't complaining that your average bootstrapped SaaS can't become its own ISP.

As long as any reasonably-sized company can become a provider, and as long as the government isn't demanding something outrageous, like the provider having to pay an 'interchange fee' for every invoice send through the network, economies of scale will come in and drive costs down.

>economies of scale will come in and drive costs down.

Will it, though? From the sound of it this is a singular system with no competitors and required for any commercial activity, so there's no downward pressure there. As for the intermediaries, there will probably be competition between them but history doesn't bode well (see: Quickbooks, et al.).

Peppol is a not-for-profit entity, but there are already 400+ authorized server providers.

Any provider can be paying 2k per year to operate, but can service millions of invoicing entities so the cost per-invoice can be effectively very low.

Huge difference between EU and US: In the EU, the seller always pays VAT to the government. In case of B2B, the buyer can claim it back from the government. As proof, store the invoice and data about the payment (and that the goods/service have been received). Proof is rarely verififed. Huge potential for tax fraud.

With all invoices going through government computers, only VAT that has actually been paid can be claimed back.

The easier solution would of course be to get rid of VAT, and increase income tax instead. But then people earning barely enough will suddenly notice how much the are paying. VAT nicely hides that fact.

The nice thing about VAT is that everyone has to pay it, whether they pay income tax or not. Lots of people get their money income tax free (undeclared jobs, income from abroad, inheritance, etc). With VAT everyone has to pay.

The purpose of this is to reduce manual work. In Finland, we've had mandatory electronic invoicing in all B2B transactions since 2020 (based on domestic standard called Finvoice which is very similar to PEPPOL.) It is really great. My company is 100% paper-free. When I get an invoice, it pops up to my accountants system and I just go and accept it with one click in their web UI. After that the invoice will be paid from my bank account on the due date and entered into the books automatically.

Gone are the error-prone days of manually copying account numbers, invoice reference codes and amounts from PDFs and paper mail, and scanning those invoices for book keeping.

The standards for e-invoicing are open but it's true that you need to hire a trusted intermediary to process your messages. Anyone can become a processor so it's not a closed system but I bet there's some auditting required before you get a license - which makes sense.

Overall changes like these initially mean some expenses to businesses but once the system is up and working as intended it reduces lots of mandatory pencil pushing type work, bringing savings throughout the economy to all companies.

You're right that the main basis is the automation part. That being said they could have gone with a system that does not require a yearly 2K fee to just be a part of the peppol group.

That's my only negative point about this whole system is that money is being pulled away from freelancers and small SME's for every invoice they send.

The big guys just setup an access point and pay the yearly fee as it is nothing compared to their revenue.

Most companies don't need to become processors, only those who specialise in providing financial services to others.

Unless you have a very small company you already probably have an accountant or bookkeeper. In most situations, the e-invoicing is provided by your accountant as part of their comprehensive financial management solution. I pay about 120€/mo. for a solution that includes bookkeeping, electronic and traditional invoicing, electronic and traditional expenses management, salary/payroll and all tax declarations for my 1-person company. The effort saved/cost ratio is bonkers, and in the grand scheme of things the monthly fee is marginal.

There might be indeed a usecase for SMEs that don't want to buy a comprehensive financial management solution and instead want to send their e-invoices manually. It's probably a pretty niche usecase and someone could probably provide a "proxy" processor for something like 100€/year. It's still a very marginal cost for almost any imaginable going concern. And to receive any money you anyway need a bank account, which is not free for companies.

> That's my only negative point about this whole system is that money is being pulled away from freelancers and small SME's for every invoice they send.

I don't pay anything to send or receive e-invoices on top of my monthly plan. But I do pay a very small fee to my bank for each transaction they process.

Developer working on Peppol Access Point here.

We have this nifty description:

Peppol is a global network that simplifies electronic document exchange, like invoices and purchase orders. It uses a standardized format to automate invoicing and procurement processes.

The network operates on a four-corner model involving senders, service providers, and receivers, ensuring seamless communication. By partnering with a certified Peppol Access Point (some has been mentioned, e.g., Maventa is another), you can tap into this network with ease and broaden your global reach. It’s a valid solution when you can’t set resources aside for this.

So, the options are: [1]: If you’re a software provider, partner with a Peppol-certified provider [2]: If you’re a business, you may already have access if using particular ERP or invoicing software. Ask them!

At least Maventa offers global invoice access without extra charges. Integration and user registration are free; fees apply based on Peppol usage only.

AMA

Are you willing/able to talk about the access point you're working on? Will this be one for public/commercial use? Or is this an internal project?

Hello, sure. It's for public/commercial use. I've already given the name. What would you like to know?

There's a Stripe app in their marketplace for sending invoices over PEPPOL, I'm sure it'll become a feature once it's mandatory in enough places.

Here in France there's a similar system, I just require a certain tier to accept payments through it.

I’m using VISMA e-conomic to do my bookkeeping/invoicing. They launched an eInvoice system some time ago which I would expect was PEPPOL based, or something similar. They enabled it by default without informing anyone.

A couple of my clients didn’t see the invoice in my monthly email, so they asked me to resend it. I re-sent the PDF manually.

To address OP’s question: I don’t expect it will change much for me. The customer configuration will let me choose whether the invoice is sent by email or another way, and I’ll still create my invoice by clicking “book and send” in e-conomic.

It’s really not that complicated or expensive. Broken down for most people it’s gonna work just like email. What’s your grievance besides the general stuff in your post?

It seems pretty complicated to me, but maybe you can point out some resources that make it easy?

My current invoicing system is a simple tool that generates PDFs. I send those to my customers by email (and rarely an angry reminder by post), and I get paid. Good stuff. My suppliers similarly send me PDFs by mail, and some of them send me paper invoices by post. All very simple. I pay them every month, and once every quarter I send those on to my accountant so he can do his thing.

All this sending and receiving has been free so far. But with PEPPOL, I'll suddenly need some third party tool with some kind of paid subscription, to continue to do what I had been doing for free before.

This one https://www.b2brouter.net/global/prices/ allows free sending, but it does not offer reception.

Another poster says its $2k/yr membership fee + auditing to submit invoices in their system.

Even if you "share" a certificate with others, this seems like an unwanted income tax for freelancers or businesses.

1,800 euro annual fee for freelancers:

https://peppol.org/join/fees/

That's something else, thats for directly connecting to Peppol, which few business will do (mostly very large businesses, or financial companies).

Most businesses will use a accounting system anyway, and most of those will support Peppol out-of-the-box. So instead (or in addition) to sending an e-mail, the invoice will be sent directly into their accounting system (and their bank, if they choose).

Really, it simplifies things a lot! No more punching/copying of stuff from PDFs into your online bank. The cost is not really high, just a bit annoying (typically some euros a month + a few euros pr invoice).

(I probably could have found a cheaper provider but I don't send many invoices so it is ok).

Sending an email is free. Paying for accounting software (sharing the license) is not free.

Can you share what the cost is? This [0] provider says each invoice costs $10-30. NET14 means you'd pay $260 - $780/yr!

https://www.valtatech.com/thought-leadership/einvoicing/how-...

That isn't right. I would expect your invoices to cost around 5 to 10 cents. We offer them for free in our subscription at https://www.bizzey.com

Your product costs 24,99 euro / mo or 300 euro / yr. Hardly 5-10 cents.

A few euros per invoice? That seems pretty expensive. More expensive than the postal service.

On the upside, PEPPOL guarantees delivery if you successfully submit a message. So the recipient can't claim they didn't get the invoice if you managed to deliver.

Just wait till somebody on a poor side of the continent makes a service that does the same for a flat fee of few euros per year

This exists already. But its still confusing to me why they would need to pay any euros per year?

Imagine if you're a full time worker (like a freelancer!) and you have to pay a transaction tax to get your wages.

Transactional costs exist. Paper costs money, phone calls cost money, bank accounts cost money too and exchange rates have markup in them. Then the actual taxes exist. This is how everything works. Than there is electronic signature thingy which may or may not cost money.

It’s also not a tax, as there is no entrenched monopoly that collects is. If anything, something like AWS or for my sensibilities azure is more outrageous.

My understanding is PEPPOL (charging 1,800 euro/yr!) is the only provider of this service.

Can Freelancers choose to another service (like email) instead of PEPPOL? According to the post, this service is the monopoly service provider per-law.

In the USA, a client can send me money for free via ACH or as a check (which are mostly free depending on your bank and account level).

I imagine being part of SWIFT alliance or any other payment network costs some serious moneys, yet a current account costs a few euros a months. Same things with being a CA -- being included in the list of root certs requires an audit and obviously costs money, yet you can have free https certs from letsencrypt.

Nobody stops you from running something similar to letsencrypt but for this PEPPOL thingy if you don't want to pay for invoicing software as service.

I for once, spent 10 years of my life maintaining an opensource library so people can cryptographically sign tax documents for Ukrainian government, including e-receipts on point of sale terminals.

That's not happening. Because they too will need to pay for access to the PEPPOL network. And it seems like there might be some KYC requirements in addition to the money and the audits.

Like I said, I did not check the alternatives (or even the price I'm paying today).

I pay approx €80 a month for a complete accounting/payment system, including Peppol-access, payrolls, expenses etc etc .

I actually think Peppol-invoices are free. I just choose that instead of e-mail (assuming my customer is an official company).

It is automatically transferring the invoice-data to my bank which is expensive (and that too I can fix by changing bank...)

So, all in all, Peppol is a good thing. Making it mandatory is perhaps a bit over the top, but hey.

I can shed some light on this topic. Since I own a SaaS which is focused on freelancers & SME's.

The EU is becoming very regulated when it comes to sending / receiving invoices. Basic invoicing tools that offer PDF are not sufficient anymore.

You could say I'll run my own peppol access point but the economics of doing so for a single person doesn't make sense. You're looking at a basic yearly fee of 2000 euros just for the peppol membership and on top of that you need to get certified by third parties looking at another couple of thousands euros just to be able to send and receive some invoices.

My best advice is to search for an affordable tool that takes away this complexity away for you. I know that previously you could send for free, but that's going to end if you like it or not.

I run my SaaS at https://www.bizzey.com which is a business tool that you can fully customize and peppol sending and receiving is supported (it's also completely "free" in a sense that you just pay the subscription and nothing on top)

In Spain it is mandatory since this year. There's a free Java app by the government, FACTURAe, that is capable of generating the digital invoices and it's not that complicated to use. Electronic invoices have been mandatory for public administrations for 10 years already.

eh, the mobile app for this by the italian tax agency is called FatturAE.

The opposite casing is just funny to me.

What’s your reference for the EU forcing this on businesses? The link you provided is only about Belgium.

As far as I see it, Belgium is the first to mandate it, and the rest of the EU will follow soon after. The European Commission is big on e-invoicing.

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/D...

Don't know how it relates to PEPPOL, but Finland is pretty much all in on e-invoicing and has been for years. As a consumer, I get e-invoices from my building management, insurance company, the tax administration, my credit card company, my phone operator, my electricity company and even the place I order domestic domains from.

It's really nice though. I can set invoices to be paid automatically when they're under n€ and don't have to do anything to keep up with all of my payments.

Similar experience in Iceland.

Having moved over to the continent last year though, I am now having to deal with an enormous flood of paper.

Frankly if you are a business, having to pay a per year fee plus extra per invoice just so it all can be standardised and reduce the paper flood shouldn't be an issue, as long as the fees are not too great.

Italy switched to electronic invoicing a few years back. People complained for a while but it turned out to be quite painless in the end.

How did it compare to the PEPPOL costs and implementation requirements ?

I am surprised that you have to pay for sending invoices. Thats not an issue in Germany.

The problem, as far as I see it, isn't electronic invoicing in itself, or even the format. It's the usage of the PEPPOL network. The network isn't free. Nothing is stopping anyone from creating invoices in UBL format and sending those by email (or any other means). But in countries where usage of the PEPPOL network is required, that's no longer an option.

the old system was free and there were a few public systems that allowed you to manage things manually via web or apps (e.g. chamber of commerce associations, tax agency etc) but most people went through some SaaS service to manage invoices anyway, so my assumption is that the peppol costs would be absorbed by those now.

I'm not an invoice-using resident there so I don't know for sure, sorry.

Edit: quick googling found a few services that allow you to do electronic invoicing (peppol included) for €30/year.

This only seems to cover invoicing the public sector, I don't see anything about B2B there. The dashboard mentions, "15 countries introduced obligations for issuing B2G eInvoices".

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/D...

Ah now I see that in the fact sheet for every country they write if the legislation also introduces a B2B mandate.

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/D...

So currently there are B2B mandates (some in the future) for: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Poland(?) and Romania.

Germany and France, at least, don’t have the issues mentioned here, as our e-invoicing standard is XML based (apparently now also compatible with PEPPOL XML) and doesn’t require an extra network with service fees or certifications.

That’s how EU directives usually work and this one seems to be from 2014. Saying “EU forcing” could as well be replaced with “European governments agreed on a single standard for e-invoicing in b2g and then also started to apply it in b2b”.

The only problem I see is certification requirements instead of just opened an API to where you can beam your signed xml blobs.

But there doesn't seem to be any EU directive?

I found this after entering the obvious query into the computer: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

In Germany peppol will not be mandatory for a very very long time. Most people still sending invoices via mail, even in b2b. Only in 2027 will make electronic invoices (xml format) mandatory, it will probably another 2-5 years until peppol will be necessary.

Our local accounting app just supports it. And as I understand participating to PEPPOL network is not mandatory - you can still send those electronic invoices via email as far as I understand. But yeah, your accounting software better support PEPPOL.

This thread is already the 2nd most popular search result for “PEPPOL” which surprised me. There isn’t much else out there on this topic. How are non tech enabled businesses planning to comply with this order?

I just like many others use a digital invoicing system I subscribe to. It's very cheap, just a few euro a month. They already introduced Peppol support so it's not an issue really. Any invoicing system that doesn't offer integration with Peppol would go out of business (basically useful only for VAT-exempt subjects which is a tiny fraction of the market).

This seems to be a good, updated resource that's not trying to sell you anything and has a decent number of links. In Dutch tho:

https://www.softwarepakketten.nl/bericht/7925&bronw=1/Factsh...

I’m using an intermediary saas platform that has a free plan. I don’t like being forced to use an external provider, just for being able to send invoices, but at least it’s not costing me any money (yet).

I was thinking about how governments could, if they have invested in good and simple tech, being the API suppliers (free) and an interface (paid). They “should” know the rules, let me fill some boxes and the invoice is sent to the client and to the gov. The overloaded market of acc software disrupted by gov? Let me dream ;)

i have some experience with another such protocol, for customs , to/from EU. About 15 years ago, it was made mandatory (in Bulgaria). A friend of mine suggested we make a software for filling those forms, and handle the XML-message-passing-and-signing and FSMs and all-that, and sell it. Took me few months, did it, then got few clients.. which used it for about 2 years, with updates of rules once in a while, and then one day the government published a free pdf-like generator for those XMLs, and we had to close - regardless of other niceties, people needed mostly the forms, and the new free ones were good-enough - and kept updated.

Definitely going to be a smart follower on this one. My accountant pretty much convinced me to let others experiment if they want, on our end we have a peppol compatible system, so we'll enable the feature a few days before it becomes mandatory.

Are all invoices in this network public or only the ones you sent/receieved?

Romania has a similar system for some time. The over regulation in EU is bad, but still better then a grifter president, that uses a shit coin to scam the people.

Wow, didn't know that. Seems like crooks in Brussels are trying to impoverish europeans further up, while latter are already taxed to the brink.

Additional revenue for access plus data who paid who for what, perfect set up for communist EU.

As european living outside of that happy garden, eeally hope it will collapse soon and countries in it will gain real independence.

Not sure why this post received down votes. Spinelli, whose manifesto is accepted by EU as its own was Italian communist. EU parliament building in Brussels is named after him. I'd suggest reading Spinelli's manifesto, where among other 'ideas' he calls for reduction of private property and elimination of anybody who would oppose his movement. Very interesting read.

> Not sure why this post received down votes

I didn't expect much from my fellow europeans, brainwashed by brussels propaganda from every corner. They succumb to communist policies while are being robbed outright, and whats most disgusting, they contemplate and support it voluntarily.

> I'd suggest reading Spinelli's manifesto,

thank you - quite a read indeed. I can just contribute to your suggestion by adding Unabomber manifesto as it is relatable to what happen in EU as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com